Death Cannot Stop True Love
by fireweed15
Summary: Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair. - True love has never been a snap. [One-shot; The Princess Bride AU]


The words Joaquín threw at his captor's back were ice cold. "I know who you are."

The Woman in Black glanced over her shoulder at him. "You're the Dread Pirate Roberts—admit it!" he snapped.

She grinned widely and offered him a flourishing bow. "With pride. And what can I do for you?"

"Die—slowly, cut into a thousand pieces," he hissed, his eyes dark.

The Woman in Black shook her head, clucking her tongue. "Hardly complimentary, Your Highness," she scolded. "Why loose such venom on me?"

Joaquín supposed this was a kinder fate than being left for dead on Guilder's unforgiving frontiers, but the mere sight of this woman made his vision tinge white with rage. "You killed my love."

"It's possible," the Woman in Black replied, shrugging. "I kill a lot of people." She started to pace, her path taking her in a languid circle around Joaquín. "Who was this love—another prince, like the Scandinavian?" She waved a hand dismissively at the reference to Joaquín's fiancé and sat down on the ground, leaning back against some fallen logs. "Ugly, rich?"

"No—a servant girl," Joaquín corrected archly. It seemed wrong to refer to María as a simple servant girl—she was more than that. She had been his protector for years, and she had borne so much of his childish ill-temper and demands with patience that it shamed him now to think of the cruel things he'd said to her. "Poor… Poor and perfect." His gaze drifted down to his hands, and he found himself visiting the memory of her for the first time in many months. "With eyes like fire when the light hit them so…"

He lifted his head and found the Woman in Black listening intently, and his voice hardened once more. "On the high seas your ship attacked—and the Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners."

She lifted her hands in a passive gesture, then laced her fingers behind her head, leaning back as though lounging among nobility. "I can't afford to make exceptions," she noted in her defense. "Once word gets around that a pirate's gone soft, people begin to disobey you and it's nothing but work, work, work—all the time."

"You mock my pain," Joaquín snapped.

"Life is pain, Your Highness," she threw back, meeting his gaze without qualms. "Anyone who says differently is selling something."

What gave her the right to speak so casually? As much as he hated her, he hated that she spoke the truth more, and he turned away to avoid looking at her.

Behind himself, he could hear her stand, and feel her eyes drilling into his back behind her black mask. "I remember your servant girl, I think," she announced, walking back into his line of vision. "It would be… ¿hace cinco años?"

Joaquín kept his gaze deliberately turned away, toward the valley below them, and didn't answer the question, but the Woman in Black continued as though he had. "Does it bother you that I mention it?"

"Nothing you have to say will upset me," Joaquín announced, his mind far away. Perhaps, if he thought hard enough about it, he could soothe himself with his memories of María.

"I suppose it would please you to know that she died well," she went on. "Neither bribery nor tears… She said only please. 'Please, I need to live.'" She turned and looked Joaquín in the eye. "It was the please that caught my memory. I ask what was so special, that I might spare her. 'True love,' she replies."

Joaquín found himself looking up from the stump on which he sat to look at the Woman in Black. Had María's love for him been with her until the moment of her death?

Although he hadn't spoken the thought aloud, the Woman in Black's next words seemed to confirm it. "And she spoke of a young man of great beauty and faithfulness—I assume she meant you." She stood next to, but didn't look at him, one hand loosely gripping the sword hanging from her belt. "You might thank me—I destroyed her before she found out the truth about what you really are."

"And what am I?" Joaquín demanded, standing and meeting her eyes.

"Faithfulness, Your Highness," she spat, stepping up to him, mere inches separating them now. "Your enduring faithfulness! Now speak truly—when you found out she was dead, did you run to the Scandinavian the same hour? Or did you wait a week out of respect for the dead?"

"You mocked me once—never do it again!" he warned. "I died that day!"

On a ridge overhead, hoof beats stamped against the ground, drawing the Woman in Black's attention away from Joaquín. For a moment, Joaquín's eyes followed—even from this far below, royal banners could be seen in the riding party above. His heart surged with hope, both at the sight of the banners and at the realization that he had looked back first, that the Woman in Black was still watching the riders above.

He lunged forward, his hand reaching for the sword at her belt. "And you can die too, for all I care—"

He had meant to unsheathe her sword and use it against her, but the only thing he managed was to knock her off her footing and sent her tumbling down the hill. As she rolled, boots over cap, ever faster down the hill, she cried out—not the wordless cry of someone caught off her guard, but a deliberate message. "As… you… wish…"

To anyone else, the words would have meant precious little, but when Joaquín heard them, a million memories and just as many emotions washed over him like a wave. "Oh my God, María—¿qué he hecho?" He started to follow her on foot, but just as quickly lost his own footing and tumbled down the grassy knoll after her.

The rolled and tumbled for what felt like a small forever, but finally came to a stop when the incline became more gradual. Joaquín laid on his back, his arms and legs sprawled out as he stared up at the sky, breathing heavily. For a moment, the only sound was the wind rustling the grass and the occasional thrum of an insect. Then, the rustling became louder, almost frantic—

And María was looking down at him.

There was no doubt it was María now, as the black mask that had concealed her face had been lost in the tumble down the hill. Her eyes, the same eyes of which he'd spoken so fondly at the top of the hill, were filled with concern and the corners of her mouth were downturned as she ran her hands along his limbs with gentle but firm pressure. "Can you move at all?" she murmured, her gaze falling on his face once more.

"Move?" Joaquín echoed, energy seeping into his limbs and lifting his hands to cup her cheek. "You're alive—if you want, I could fly."

The pair embraced, their arms wrapped tightly around one another as though each was afraid that if they let the other go, they would be lost once again. Joaquín buried his face in María's neck, her curls brushing against his cheek; she smelled of the ocean, and the scent made him lonely for their life before she'd ever left.

María pulled back, running her hand along Joaquin's cheek. "I told you I would always come for you," she murmured. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

"Well… Estabas muerta," he managed, cheeks flushing as he thought of assumptions he'd made, the fears he had when he'd learned María's ship had been taken. "You were dead."

María's expression was warm and a little sad, as though she regretted that he had to make such an assumption. "Death cannot stop true love," she soothed. "All it can do is delay it for a while."

Joaquín nodded, finding tears stinging at the backs of his eyes. "I'll never doubt again."

María smiled and brushed her thumb against his cheek. "There will never be a need," she vowed, drawing him close and pressing her lips to his.

In the kiss, the first true kiss Joaquín had known in half a decade, he could feel all of her love and the sincerity of her vows, and as he returned it, he decided fiancé be damned, and he returned the sentiments a thousand fold.


End file.
